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Monday, December 21, 2015

Focus on the South Pacific: Railway Radio 5ZB in New Zealand

(via radiodx.com)

The
mobile radio broadcasting station, 5ZB, was installed into a luxury railway
carriage and it made a 3 month tour of the North Island of New Zealand
beginning on March 20, 1939. The first
town to host the station was Rotorua where it was involved in local civic and
commercial events for a period of five days.
Mediumwave radio
5ZB radiated its locally produced live programming from a 250 watt transmitter
on 1360 kHz through an antenna suspended above the railway carriage.

The last town to host this unique
radio broadcasting service was Masterton, and at the end of its third day at
this location in June (1939), the station left the air; its purpose in
demonstrating the value of local commercial radio broadcasting in New Zealand
had been successfully achieved. Its 2,000 miles of travel over the railway
system in the North Island and its three months of service in 13 communities
was over, for ever.

Well, as subsequent events
demonstrated, not quite. Give five
months later, and the 5ZB railway carriage was on display with a majestic
flourish at the Centennial Exhibition in suburban Wellington. This Centennial Exhibition was staged in
Rongotai, a specially built venue in the south eastern locality of the national
capital, Wellington. The purpose for
this exhibition was to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of the signing
of a treaty between Maori leaders and the British colonial government.

On the opening day, Wednesday
November 8, 1939, 5ZB
was on the air, much to the admiration of multitudes who thronged to see this
unique radio broadcasting station. The
original 250 watt broadcasting transmitter was on the air again, still on its
same regular channel 1360 kHz.

In addition, a motor van had been
fitted out with a low powered shortwave transmitter for use in relaying live interviews and program
segments from various remote locations back to 5ZB. For example, on January 16 early in the new
year (1940), the Exhibition welcomed its one millionth visitor, Mrs. L. D.
Cogan from Dunedin. On this occasion,
the van made a shortwave broadcast back to 5ZB from a location at the gateway
to the Exhibition.

Station 5ZB was on the air daily
from its stationary location inside the Exhibition areas, usually in the
afternoons and into the evenings.
Recordings were made of the 5ZB programming, including the the shortwave spliced-in segments from nearby
remote locations and these were broadcast nationwide over the network of
government owned ZB commercial stations throughout New Zealand.

A special series of remote broadcasts
was planned for February 6, 1940, the exact one hundredth anniversary of the
signing of the the Treaty of Waitangi.
The signing of this Treaty took place at the locality of Waitangi, which
is situated on the Bay of Islands, quite near the northern tip of the North
Island, nearly 500 miles north of the Exhibition location in Wellington.

Another mobile broadcast van,
normally operated by commercial station 2ZB in Wellington, was driven to
Waitangi for the special anniversary broadcast.
However, this van was not equipped with a mobile shortwave transmitter,
so the assistance and the equipment of three local amateur radio transmitters
was called into action.

Alan Snow of nearby Whangarei took
his amateur radio equipment ZL1HJ to Waitangi for the occasion, and he relayed
the anniversary celebrations on shortwave to 5ZB’s sister commercial station 1ZB in Auckland. The input from a total of 12 microphones was
spliced into this special radio programming, which was also carried by 5ZB in
suburban Wellington.

For this special radio occasion,
transmitter ZL1HJ was on the air under the callsign 1ZA, borrowed from the
government operated standard mediumwave station at Whangarei. Two other amateur stations also co-operated
in this unique program relay on shortwave; Frank Hart from Paparoa with ZL1NH
and Cliff McLean of Waipu with ZL1AI.

The final day of the Centennial
Exhibition in Wellington was Saturday May 4, 1940, and by this time, 2.8
million people had visited the Exhibition, considerably more than the total
population of New Zealand at the time.
Radio station 5ZB was in service at this Exhibition for the entire 6
months that it was open.

Then, radio station 5ZB was again
silenced, forever. In fact, that is not
quite true either. After the Exhibition
was over, the contents of the special radio carriage AA1710 was removed and the
carriage itself was returned to the New Zealand railway system for regular
railway service. In February 1982, this
same carriage, though now numbered as AL50049,
was written off in Auckland.

However, the 5ZB transmitter was
taken way down south in the South Island and it was placed in service with
sister commercial station 4ZB in Dunedin where it was licensed as an auxiliary
(emergency) transmitter under the callsign 4ZF.
At its new location, transmitter 4ZF was noted on occasions in New
Zealand and Australia in early 1941 with test transmissions still on its
regular channel of 1360 kHz. When 4ZF
got too old to be useful, it was finally silenced, for the last time.

However, there was an echo of this
station some forty years later when another railway carriage in New Zealand was
fitted out with a radio production studio, just like the old and nearly
forgotten 5ZB, though no actual transmitter was installed. The Pleasant Point Railway & Historical
Society in Timaru staged the occasion in 1982 when they outfitted a Guard’s Van F423 with a bevy of electronic
equipment. Programing from this special
event studio was transmitted over the nearby regular radio broadcasting station
3XC in Timaru with 2 kW on 1152 kHz.

And
that really is the end of this fascinating radio saga, a series of interesting
events that spanned 43 years!